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Home My WebLink About2025-01-07-NAC-min Town of Lexington Noise Advisory Commi?ee (NAC) Minutes of Mee?ng, January7, 2025 The Mee?ng of the NAC was held in person in the Select Board Mee?ng Room of the Town Oﬃce Building on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 at 7pm. NAC Members Present: Chair Barbara Katzenberg (BK), Sallye Bleiberg (SB, Benjamin Lees (BL), Laura Rosen (LR) and Elaine Rudell (ER) . Also in a?endance: Select Board Liaison Joe Pato (JP) and member of the public Rick Reinstein (RR) remotely Administra?on 1. SB was assigned to serve as clerk. 2. The Minutes of the December 3, 2024 mee?ng were approved unanimously. Commi?ee Business 1. BK reported that the Zoning Board of appeals, per Ralph Cliﬀord at the last NAC mee?ng, would like changes in the noise by-laws. The ZBA will create a warrant ar?cle for the April Town Mee?ng. The ZBA would like to exlude customary usage structure such as play structures. The ZBA is leaving other noise issues to the NAC, but we will not be ready by TM to make any proposals. 2. Select Board member Jill Hai is a member of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council which has a Minute Man subgroup. This group has commissioned a study of noise bylaws in several towns. BK asked for their ﬁndings to be shared with the NAC. 3. LR and BK have worked on the comparison of the bylaws our commi?ee inves?gated. They point out that it is very complicated to compare noise by-laws and ordinances from municipali?es. They looked at exterior noise maximum levels, metrics, and enforcement across those municipali?es. Those surveyed by the NAC thus far focus on separate issues by zone, by source, by type such as con?nuous vs. impulsive, and by dura?on. There also were some allowances for ranges in rela?on to ambient background noise. 4. The previously convened NAC tried to do the same project and BK will be given their informa?on. 5. Reasonable person standards, used by some municipali?es, are diﬃcult to quan?fy. At the December mee?ng dBAs were said not always to be useful. RR stated that there are problems with both measurements of noise. He forwarded to LR a link to a noise pollu?on clearing house. 6. Enforcement is variable from police departments to inspec?onal service departments to boards of health. LR will look at this more closely. 7. There are various levels of regula?ons. There is zoning, municipality regula?ons, by-laws and state regula?ons. Thus far the Select Board has not created regula?ons for noise. 8. JP reported that the Lexington Compliance Oﬃcer has been hired but will not begin work un?l the Spring. A discussion ensued about how the noise complaints would be funneled to one central loca?on. JP reported that Lexington is working on incorpora?ng so?ware which will serve that func?on but it will take a while for Click Fix to be implemented for noise complaints. 9. A report given to BK by the Lexington Police Department contains a small number of noise complaints, most of which are about construc?on sites. Resolu?on of the complaints is not included in the report. SB suggested that BK and she meet with Chief McLeary and Oﬃcer Barry again. SB will set up the mee?ng. 10. New noise complaints include that lawn equipment at the high school creates too much noise to teach and that a generator on private property frequently goes on and oﬀ. The la?er has been inves?gated and found not to be a problem. The former raises an issue for considera?on by the NAC for ?me restric?ons on sites where noise disrupts the ac?vity at hand. Building Oﬃce Commissioner Jim Kelly has responded to construc?on noise complaints by sending Noise Mi?ga?on Plans by-law informa?on. He feels that the new by- law is working as planned. Public Comments RR said that a deﬁni?on of noise which includes the causa?on of harm is gaining in popularity. The next mee?ng is Tuesday, February 4, 2025. The mee?ng was adjourned at 8:03pm.